


now everything's vivid, vivid

by spacebubble



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Clubbing, Ferengi, Grinding, M/M, Making Out, Post-Canon, Shapeshifting, Touch Telepathy, and innumerable instances of Odo being displeased with being in da club
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-01
Updated: 2017-10-01
Packaged: 2019-01-07 02:46:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12224151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacebubble/pseuds/spacebubble
Summary: Canon divergence clubbing AU: Odo searches for Quark in a seedy Ferengi nightclub full of pounding bass and lightless rooms. It’s like finding a needle in a haystack, except he can barely see anything and has to brush up against countless other obnoxious Ferengi in order to find his obnoxious Ferengi, not that Quark is necessarily “his” or anything. Odo’s merely trying to solve a mystery.





	now everything's vivid, vivid

**Author's Note:**

> >> [mood music](https://youtu.be/r-AuLm7S3XE) :3

It’s nighttime on Ferenginar and the streets are slick with rain.

The ground vibrates gently underneath Odo’s simulated boots, thrumming with subaudible bass notes that he can’t quite detect as he stands in line to enter the nightclub.

At the club’s entrance, a tall Hupyrian bouncer in a dark uniform holds out a collection device for visitors to deposit their entrance fee. There’s a streak of electric turquoise in the bouncer’s hair, though it might just be a trick of the light - the club’s luminous signage continually shifts in color, washing everything in its immediate vicinity in garish hues.

As the Ferengi front of him deposits his entrance fee into the bouncer’s collection device, Odo takes another moment to scan the rest of the line.

Stretching behind him is a queue of Ferengi dressed in a truly staggering variety of clubgoing apparel. The occasional non-Ferengi interrupts the sea of lumpy-headed homogeneity with equally outlandish clothing, but slightly more variety in the amount of bared skin.

Odo glances back at himself. He stands out, head to toe in muted black, but he would have looked even more out of place in his usual uniform. At least his shapeshifted leather jacket looks outrageously expensive.

(Rom and Leeta had managed to convince him that his customary Bajoran security uniform wouldn’t be suitable for such an environment, so Odo altered his “clothing” to resemble something sleeker and darker. Rom supposed it would do, looking like an upscale undertaker rather than a security officer. Odo didn’t understand why Leeta felt the need to lightly slap Rom on the arm for that, but he gave up on trying to decipher the couple’s behavior long ago.

More usefully, Leeta had pulled up an array of holographic examples for Odo to reference. Terran clubwear had been the most modest, relatively speaking, so Odo settled for a compromise between his preferred Bajoran clothing and the more fitted Terran fashion. Bajor didn’t exactly have a thriving nightclub industry yet.)

The Hupyrian bouncer coughs, and Odo snaps back to attention.

He deposits the entrance fee into the collection device, the slips of latinum falling inside with a series of metallic clicks, and the bouncer steps aside to let him through.

 

* * *

 

Odo whips his head around as he steps inside the club, but he can barely see a thing.

He’s in the middle of a central room with multiple doorways leading off into multiple unknown areas. Thin lines of light mark the doorways. More lines of light signal the bar off to the side of the dancefloor. Multiple bartenders, none of which are Ferengi, mix drinks for their dazed customers, who seem to be ordering off an illuminated padd rather than bother making themselves heard above the noise.

And what a noise it is - a cacophony of noises, rather, suspended over rhythmic beats pounding through the floor, shooting vibrations throughout Odo’s body.

He supposes it’s the Ferengi version of clubbing music.

It doesn’t resemble anything lingering in Odo’s memory from Curzon’s past experiences, and it’s not exactly pleasant. But it’s certainly stimulating.

Odo shifts the light receptors in his body to readjust to the near-lightless room, but quickly realizes he needn’t have bothered.

Even with a clearer vision, the Ferengi clubgoers are so numerous and so densely packed that it’d take a miracle for Odo to find Quark amongst the crowd. No two outfits are alike, but all the Ferengi’s clubbing outfits share a similar extravagance. Latinum-resembling metallic threads, mesh panels skirting the line between transparency and opacity, and opulent prismatic fabrics flicker in and out as the they catch the occasional sliver of colored light.

Not that it matters much. Vision takes a backseat to sound in Ferengi nightclubs, and very few non-Ferengi have the hearing capacity to fully experience this particular spectrum of sonic decadence.

No, the appeal for non-Ferengi lay in a different sensory experience entirely.

Odo’s disgusted grunt is lost to the club’s throbbing atmosphere as he observes far too many clubgoers engage in seducing one another. The Ferengi easily succumb to overstimulated pleasure, while the non-Ferengi eagerly take their pick, seemingly indiscriminately.

He wishes Quark’s last known signal wasn’t traceable to such an establishment.

A withdrawal of funds at the bar. A familiar thumb impression, digitized and transmitted through the usual subspace financial channels.

Of all the seedy nightclubs on Ferenginar, Quark had to be in the one rated highest for promiscuity.

Odo supposes he’s glad the floor is painted in the darkest obsidian. He’d rather not see what’s sticking to the soles of his simulated boots.

He shapeshifts the undersides of his boots to be even more impervious to the ground below. It doesn’t lessen his discomfort at the contact to any significant degree, but Odo knows he’s about to encounter a far greater quantity of uncomfortable contact very soon.

He eyes the unavoidable writhing mass of bodies on the dancefloor, and shapeshifts his external surfaces until they can barely sense anything.

Sighing with his entire body, Odo braces himself to enter into the fray and search for Quark.

 

* * *

 

It’s hard to distinguish one Ferengi’s noises from the other, but Odo has spent many years attuned to Quark’s particular noises. Not even his people could erase those memories. 

He supposes he should feel a twinge of guilt at passing those memories along to the rest of the Great Link, but it served them right, honestly.

Of course he had healed them. What compassionate lifeform wouldn’t?

But that didn’t mean Odo only transmitted the cure when he healed his people.

Quark would have been pleased, or so he thought.

It had shocked Odo when he returned to the station and Quark wasn’t there.

How could Quark have left?

Just like that? Without a goodbye?

Not that Odo had said goodbye to Quark either, but that was different, obviously.

As the club’s musical barrage and the hideous chorus of aroused Ferengi continues to pummel Odo’s senses, he grimly continues making his way through the crowds.

 

* * *

 

A whimpering moan off in the distance catches Odo’s attention. 

He slides through the crowd of writhing bodies towards the noise, almost completely certain that it must be Quark, even as a tendril of doubt gently curls through his mind.

What if it’s not? 

What if he’s about to walk in on some other Ferengi’s private affair?

The moans are getting louder, hitting a particular pitch that he’s heard muted through other walls in other times.

Odo’s instinct tells him to continue pursuing the sound. 

 

* * *

 

He remembers walking in on Quark, back in his early days on Terok Nor, seeing the Ferengi with his head thrown back, eyes closed, legs spread, systematically being ravished against a wall by some anonymous glinn.

Odo had been unable to distinguish the moans of pleasure from moans of pain, and he froze in place, trying to assess whether he should intervene, when he saw Quark’s hand tangle itself into the glinn’s hair and pull him closer for a kiss.

Ah.

Moans of pleasure, then.

And Odo was just about to leave, to step softly away from the lurid scene, when he noticed Quark’s eyelids partially lift open.

The Ferengi looked directly at him.

Odo looked back, mesmerized by Quark’s half-lidded gaze. The sight of it locked him into place. A forcefield couldn’t have been more powerful. 

He kept looking as the glinn did something with his hips that made Quark break off the kiss with an obscenely high-pitched cry, the sound punched out of his exhausted body as it slid up the wall. 

The noise yanked Odo back into self-awareness.

He was intruding on Quark’s privacy, and he had better leave.

Turning around on his heel, Odo stalked out of the room, trying to forget he ever saw what he had just seen.

(He wasn’t successful, not by a long shot. Odo’s lack of success became especially apparent after his people transformed him into a solid, leaving him with a disobedient imagination and an even more disobedient set of physical responses.)

To his relief, Quark never mentioned it afterwards.

He could almost pretend it never happened. 

 

* * *

 

The noises disappear before Odo can arrive at their source.

Too slow.

He’s lost him.

Odo scowls to himself as he bumps into yet another person who’s not Quark.

Perhaps he should take a break from being a person.

He loses count of the number of other Ferengi he brushes past as he moves from room to room, transforming into smoke, into fog, into colorless mist, hovering in and out as he investigates.

His shapeshifting abilities have become quite advanced after spending so much time in the Link. 

A wave of amusement washes over Odo as he thinks about showing them off to Quark.

Maybe he’d surprise Quark by floating into view in the form of a cloud of light, showering the scoundrel in glittering particles until he was all Quark could see.

 

* * *

 

He doesn’t have a plan for what he intends to do when he finally does find Quark again.

It remains a mystery why Quark left the station in the first place. He hadn’t bothered trying to stay with Ishka, though that was likely because of Zek’s presence. And he certainly hadn’t attempted to contact Rom, who had no idea Quark was even off the station, much less on Ferenginar. 

(Odo couldn’t really blame Rom for his ignorance. Being the financial and political leader of an entire planet, in addition to instigating massive social reforms, had a way of occupying one’s time. Or so he understood.) 

Odo didn’t have much of a plan for returning from the Link, either.

He had retained an individuality that didn’t quite harmonize with the rest of the Link, no matter how much he and the rest of his people expected their consciousnesses to merge. 

He supposed he had Quark to thank for that.

 

* * *

 

Odo resumes his black-clad bipedal form as he wanders back out into the club’s main dancefloor.

Much to Odo's dismay, the masses on the dancefloor seem to have multiplied in his absence.

He sighs.

He supposes he has no choice but to re-enter the crowds. 

He considers floating over them as mist, as fog, but the clubgoers are so numerous and active that Odo suspects the vapor from their perspiration might tangle with his own molecules and form a truly hideous cloud.

No, it’d be safest to enter as he is, disgruntled and solid-seeming, even if it does mean stepping all over that questionably sticky floor again. 

 

* * *

 

The club’s charged atmosphere is starting to affect him. 

He doesn’t want to admit it, but it’s hard not to absorb some of the atmosphere, as much as Odo resists absorbing anything else about the club’s surroundings. 

Developing a heightened set of shapeshifting abilities had been marvelous. Developing a heightened sensitivity to absorbing information through linking, not so much.

His people never did seem to like touching other humanoids, and after a sufficient time amongst them, he now knows why. 

As he moves through the dancing crowd, each moment of accidental contact builds up Odo’s desire to reunite with Quark. Like static electricity, like heat, rising by degrees.

He wonders how Quark might feel in his arms, pressed flush against him, every little noise lost to oblivion as he kisses Quark senseless.

Perhaps that’s what he’ll do when he finds Quark. 

Kiss the scoundrel. And only kiss.

Odo idly contemplates making Quark cry from frustration, and he smiles to himself.

A fitting retribution for putting him through all this trouble.

 

* * *

 

Finally, _finally_ , Odo detects a familiar whine cutting through the noise, faint but recognizable, and he rushes towards its source.

Quark’s off to the side of the crowd, surrounded by gyrating bodies underneath flashing lights, dancing with abandon.

Other sense memories, both borrowed and owned, begin resurfacing in Odo’s mind.

Fingers trailing along bare skin. Clothes giving way to persistent hands. 

Half-lidded gazes in the dark.

Odo pushes his way forward until there’s only one other person between him and Quark, and he comes to a stop.

The other alien is tall and of a species Odo doesn’t recognize. 

Suspicious-looking. Angular. Light-haired. 

An obstacle.

Quark’s eyes are closed as he moves to the music, making a number of noises as the tall alien grinds against him, and Odo decides to intervene.

It’s an old trick of Curzon’s, gradually nudging someone else away and acting surprised when the other person expressed displeasure. 

Odo flashes an obnoxious smile and claps the alien on the shoulder. 

Thanks _so_ much for filling in, but he can take over from here.

For good measure, Odo also shapeshifts a few dozen short metallic spikes along the length of his forearm, bristling out of the top of his jacket sleeve like thorns.

Nothing too ostentatious. Just enough to catch the other person’s eye. 

A minor trick of his own. 

Clearly annoyed, but also intimidated, the alien disappears from view, and Odo reabsorbs the spikes back into himself. 

And he turns back to Quark.

Quark’s laughing and shaking his head, clearly entertained by what has just occurred. 

It takes him a moment to calm down enough for Odo to get his attention again.

As Quark’s laughter subsides, he gazes up at Odo with a fond look, or what Odo hopes is a fond look - it’s hard to tell in the inconsistent light - and he’s trying to say something, but Odo can’t hear him clearly, and Quark can’t seem to hear Odo’s excited and exasperated rendition of his name either, and they’re both trying to talk to each other in the midst of an obnoxiously encroaching mass of clubgoers fencing them in and pushing them towards each other, until there’s no longer any distance between them.

Odo stops trying to speak.

Words are clearly insufficient for this situation.

He reaches around Quark’s back to draw Quark even closer, until he feels Quark’s hips dig into his, and he sees Quark gasp his name. 

It’s a new situation, but one that Curzon’s been in many times over, and Odo runs on those borrowed memories as he begins to move in a way he would have found immoral mere moments ago. 

They dance in time with the music, if it could be called dancing, synchronizing their movements to the pulsating beat throbbing from the ground up into the air.

The closer he gets, the more Odo can feel the music traveling through Quark’s body, vibrations transmitted through the skin.

It’s hypnotic.

Quark tilts his head and gives him a curious look, as if he couldn’t believe his luck, as if he’s the one who found Odo after a long search and not the other way around. 

The look reminds Odo of something he can’t quite remember.

Wasn’t there something else he had meant to do at this point?

He gazes at Quark’s upturned face, pondering the glimpses of blown-out pupils and smile-induced wrinkles as the club’s shifting lights bask them in washes of electric blue and violet.

Well, at least Quark was smiling.

Ah. 

Right. 

Odo leans closer, aiming for that smile.

He means for it to be a slow kiss, slow enough to give Quark time to avoid it, if Quark wants.

But yet another discourteous clubgoer bumps into Odo and makes him lose his balance, and Odo ends up smashing his mouth against Quark’s, and all thoughts of going slow go out the window. 

It’s a mess of a kiss that almost shifts into a bite, and Quark makes a noise that Odo can’t hear as Odo’s teeth graze his bottom lip quite hard, much harder than Odo ever intended.

Growling in frustration, Odo grabs the back of Quark’s neck to hold him still and avoid bruising him any further.

They readjust, using more lips than teeth this time, and it’s better.

Much better.

Quark sighs into his mouth, his entire body pressed flush against Odo’s, hips gently rocking.

The air thrums with synthesized vibrations, and Quark’s pulse races underneath his hand.

A warm glow spreads through Odo as they continue making out with one another in the middle of the dancefloor.

He feels Quark clutch at his arms, and the crowds begin to fade away from Odo’s perception, even though the sea of people has yet to abate. 

The warmth within him seems to spread further, transcending linear thought.

It feels like nothing else exists. 

In fact, it almost feels like -

Odo pulls back in a daze, searching Quark’s eyes to see if the Ferengi also realized they were linking, ready to apologize for the impulsive intimacy.

But Quark merely grins back at him with a doting expression, and he nods over to the wall, towards the various doorways to the private rooms.

Through the link, a wordless urge to relocate away from the crowd. 

The background music takes on a sinuous quality, weaving in and out of Odo’s consciousness as he tries to piece together what just happened and is continuing to happen.

Quark’s doting expression shifts into mild exasperation. He reaches for Odo’s hand and tugs on it impatiently. 

A fallen drink splashes on the ground near them, but thankfully not on them.

Yet another mysterious element adding to the questionable texture of the floor. 

Hesitating no longer, Odo follows Quark out of the throng.

 

* * *

 

Had Odo the luxury of drawing out their reunion, he’d have selected a much different locale, one that didn’t require yet another deposit of latinum in order to lock the door behind them.

(Not everyone in the private rooms bothered locking their doors, as he and Quark quickly discovered several rooms ago.)

Odo’s glad for the lock, and the privacy, and the way Quark keeps wriggling against him with a series of needy little moans.

They can barely see each other in the room’s sordid ruby-hued light, but it doesn’t matter.

Touch alone suffices. And the link amplifies each and every touch.

The link amplifies other things as well. Memories. Sensations. Unmasked emotions, bare and raw.

Years of longing burn through Odo’s thoughts as he presses Quark back against the wall, then up, the soft skin of Quark’s inner thighs rubbing pleasantly around his waist. 

Humming absently into Quark’s mouth, Odo lifts Quark up even higher. His fingers splay out and caress the expanse between thigh and hip, noting the difference between Quark’s bare legs and the smooth mesh stockings that Odo had rolled down each leg mere moments before. 

A brief flicker of amusement traverses the link.

Without removing his lips from Quark’s, Odo sends back an protestation of innocence. _Curzon_ had the fetish, not he.

Another flicker of amusement, stronger this time, like a flame licking its way along a length of wood.

It’s almost disconcerting how quickly Quark picks up on the wordless communication inherent in the link. 

He can’t transmit thoughts as precisely as a Changeling could, but Odo doesn’t care. 

Amusement mingles with affection, then lust, then a blur of other thoughts as Odo starts moving between Quark’s legs.

He recalls the glinn, the half-lidded gaze.

He thinks he can emulate the precise motion of the hips -

Quark breaks off the kiss with an even louder cry than Odo remembered, and the shared burst of pleasure makes them both shudder against each other, trembling against the wall. 

In the afterglow, a flood of Quark’s memories mingle with Odo’s.

Colorful recollections, spiked with passionate encounters and novel bodies. Temporary satisfactions, ephemeral and lost with each new morning. The tedium of days uninterrupted by investigation. A coincidental disinterest in remaining on the station without a certain Changeling to keep him alert. And...

Now it’s Odo’s turn to send amusement through the link.

He hadn’t realized how often Quark had returned to that particular memory of the wall and the gaze either, and how Quark couldn’t make eye contact with Odo for weeks afterwards without wanting to cross his legs.

(Odo feels a twinge of disappointment that it hadn’t been months, but Quark immediately chides him for being so inconsiderate - it was all well and good for a Changeling who never had to worry about visible arousal, but Quark had customers to serve, people to see, etc.)

Nothing that Quark would ever admit out loud, of course.

Odo smiles as he presses a kiss to Quark’s exhausted mouth.

He still disapproves of the nightclub’s general existence, and he still regards nearly everything about their current surroundings with a deep suspicion -

Quark laughs, nuzzling Odo’s nose.

\- but overall, Odo supposes it’s been a good evening. 

 

* * *

 

The Hupyrian bouncer nods at them as they exit the club.

Odo returns the nod, and is about to continue walking towards their waiting transportation vehicle, when he feels Quark tug on his hand.

Perplexed, Odo’s about to reopen the link and inquire what’s wrong, when he notices the bouncer hold out a collection device.

He glances back at Quark, who exaggeratedly makes a point of depositing a few strips of latinum into the device before looking back at Odo expectantly.

“Don’t tell me,” Odo sighs, and he forks over enough slips of latinum to pay the exit tip.

The bouncer gives him a slight bow, which Odo acknowledges with a neutral sort of grunt.

He doesn’t know why this makes Quark laugh.

“Missed your weird noises,” Quark explains. 

Odo rolls his eyes as they resume their departure, hand in hand.

But he smiles to himself nonetheless.

Without or without the link, the affection was unmistakeable. 

The evening air seems to sing with possibility.

It’s nighttime on Ferenginar, and the streets are slick with rain.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Odo still has questions left, but he figures he'll get around to them later.
> 
> \- Quark's clubbing outfit is up to your imagination, but it definitely has some aspect of the metallic bolero w/ mirrorball shoulder panels that [Nicki M. wore](http://nickiminaj.wikia.com/wiki/File:Nicki_Minaj_Victoria_Secret.jpg) during her 2011 VS performance. :)
> 
> \- BONUS LEVEL: **auversastra** [drew an amazing take](http://auversastra.tumblr.com/post/166409407729/) on the clubbing outfit (and other choice Ferengi Looks too!)
> 
> \- Title stems from Dua Lipa's "Lost in Your Light" (as good a clubbing song as there ever was).
> 
> \- Thanks for reading!


End file.
